


Paradise, Lost

by itallstartedwithdefenestration



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, amnesia!fic, set about two months after 8x23
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itallstartedwithdefenestration/pseuds/itallstartedwithdefenestration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sam doesn't realize how lucky he is until the morning he can't remember anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradise, Lost

**Author's Note:**

> The memory-loss bit was inspired by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is a film I'd recommend to anyone at all ever.

Sam’s fixing coffee and pancakes in his boxers when he hears footsteps in the hallway, and glances up just in time to see a man walking downstairs, hair tousled and eyes red. His jeans hang loose and frayed off his hips, and there’s a wing tattoo crawling across his shoulders. Bite marks litter his collarbones and the sides of his neck, and Sam’s eyebrows draw together in confusion.

“Morning,” the guy mutters in Sam’s direction.

Sam pauses, puts his spatula down, and turns. The guy is in his kitchen now, pouring water into a glass at the sink. “Um,” Sam says, and then the guy turns. 

“What,” he says flatly.

Sam swallows. There’s something familiar about his tone, and Sam instinctively wants to preserve himself from it. He doesn’t like being on the blunt side of this man’s anger. Which makes no sense because he doesn’t even—

“Do I know you?” Sam asks, and the man almost drops the glass he’s holding.

*

It’s actually really confusing, to be on the receiving end of someone’s anger when you don’t even know them. Sam’s finding that out the hard way, because this man—blond, a little shorter than him, with sad eyes the color of the sea and the barest hint of a stomach poking over his belt loops—is clearly furious with him. Furious about something Sam doesn’t even remember.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says for what feels like the millionth time. “Could you just tell me your name?”

The man looks at him over his glass of water. His shoulders lift and fall in a slow simulation of a shrug— _‘simulation’,_ now there’s an ACT word, why would Sam even think that, like this guy’s just pretending to be human and going through the motions of shrugging and other mundane activities—and Sam watches the tattoo ripple with his muscles. 

“Lucifer,” he says finally, and takes a long drink of water. “My name’s Lucifer.”

Sam blinks. “Like the Devil?”

He thinks, belatedly, that he shouldn’t have said that, because Lucifer looks even more offended now than he already did. “Sorry,” Sam starts, but Lucifer holds up a hand.

“Please, Sam,” he says quietly. Something almost broken in his voice, and Sam presses his lips together. “Don’t.” Then he gets up and walks out, leaving his glass on the table to create a wet ring against the wood.

It’s only after Sam hears a door shut upstairs that he realizes he has no idea how Lucifer knows his name.

*

There are fourteen names in Sam’s contacts on his phone, and he calls the one at the top of the list— **Dean** , with no last name, which Sam figures probably means he knows this guy really well. Maybe Dean’s been mad at Sam too, in that same slow, cold way Lucifer was this morning. Still is, judging from the way he hasn’t come back downstairs since the disaster over breakfast.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, when he answers the phone. He sounds cheerful enough, Sam thinks, and also like he’s chewing on something. Sam gives him a minute to finish eating whatever it is he’s got, and then Dean adds, “What’s up? Lucifer giving you trouble again, man, because I told you, you can come live with me and Cas until—”

“Who are you?” Sam interrupts, and Dean goes quiet immediately. 

“Sam,” he says after a while, voice low and concerned, “it’s me, it’s Dean, you know who I am—”

No, Sam doesn’t, and the realization of this—that he only knows who he is, and not really even that, because he’s not sure what his last name is—sends a cold bolt of dread down his spine. 

“Dean,” Sam says, slow and careful, “I swear to you, I don’t know who you are.” He pauses, and then laughs, though he’s not sure why. Sharp and a little broken, and Dean’s breath catches on the other end of the phone. “I’m not even sure who I am,” he adds, and Dean swears under his breath.

“I’m gonna be there in fifteen,” Dean says, and then he hangs up.

When Sam’s closed his phone, Lucifer has come back into the room. Wearing a dull gray hoodie over the same worn-out jeans, no shoes or socks. Sam can just make out the tattoo underneath his hood, though he doesn’t want to stare too long. He has no idea what his history with this guy is.

“Lucifer,” Sam starts, startled at the ease with which that name rolls off his lips. 

“Did you call Dean?” Lucifer asks. His voice is quiet, a slow, angry burn against his tongue. 

“So you know him too,” Sam says.

Lucifer laughs, a single, harsh sound tumbling from his mouth. “Fuck, wish I didn’t,” he mutters, almost too low for Sam to hear, and then “I have work,” he says, “in the basement. I’ll come back around noon.” His eyes travel down to Sam’s lips, then back up, and Sam can see him visibly restraining himself as he walks to the door. One incisor coming out and worrying at his lower lip.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he says, commands really, and then he’s gone.

As if Sam knows of anywhere to go.

*

Dean’s shorter than he sounded on the phone, about Lucifer’s height, and this is the first thing Sam says when he sees him on his—he’s assuming it’s his, it could be Lucifer’s, it could be theirs, he doesn’t fucking know—doorstep.

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be built like Sasquatches,” Dean says, in a voice that speaks of years of this familiar banter. Sam decides he must know this guy really well—military haircut, bright green eyes, firm jaw. There’s something about the way he holds his shoulders as he walks in and shuts the door behind him, something that makes Sam angry and nostalgic, and he pinches the bridge of his nose and shuts his eyes.

“So,” Dean says, sitting on the sofa, littered with empty Chinese take-out boxes and cigarette butts and a pair of sunglasses, cheap and cracked. “Do you know your name?”

Sam tells him.

“Okay. Good. I’m Dean Winchester, I’m your brother.”

They don’t look anything alike, but Sam’s chest feels a little more settled at the thought of Dean being his brother, rather than an ex or anything else, so he just nods. “So I’m Sam Winchester?”

Dean makes an affirmative noise. “You know who Lucifer is?”

“He didn’t tell me, no.”

Dean snorts. “Typical. Okay. Lucifer is your—partner.”

Sam doesn’t miss the hesitation before the word ‘partner’, but there’s no ring on his finger to surprise and corner him into marriage, and there were those bruises marring Lucifer’s pale skin, so it’s easy enough to believe.

“He doesn’t like you either,” Sam supplies, trying to be helpful. 

Dean shoots him a strange look. “No,” he says, sounding strained. Like he’s trying desperately to remember that Sam doesn’t know anything. “Lucifer and I have never gotten along.”

“Do we have parents?” Sam asks. Suddenly he’s frantic for news about himself. Anything. Anything that might trigger a memory. He hates being the only person he’s met today that doesn’t know anything about his past. “Do they approve that I’m dating someone named after Satan?”

“Slow down, Sam,” Dean says, though Sam doesn’t miss the flash of pain behind his eyes. “Don’t wanna overwhelm you with information.” He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his phone. “I’m gonna tell Cas to come over, if that’s okay.”

Sam doesn’t even know who Cas is, but Dean’s mentioned him—her?—twice now, so whoever they are, they must be important. He nods at his brother, and then goes into the kitchen to clean off his still-dirty plates from breakfast.

Then he realizes he’s still just in his boxers, and he has to ask Dean where his room is so he can put on more clothes.

It wouldn’t be quite so humiliating if Dean didn’t look so sad when Sam asks.

*

Cas, it turns out, is a guy. Shorter than Dean, and leaner, but obviously in shape. He’s wearing a red t-shirt and frayed jeans, and Sam blurts, “Where’s the suit and tie?” without even knowing why he’s saying it. 

Cas and Dean exchange glances. A whole conversation spoken in silence in front of Sam, and he can feel the back of his neck heating up. Clearly Dean’s got a history with Cas. 

“Are you Dean’s partner?” Sam asks, thinking of the way Dean described what Lucifer is to Sam.

Cas tilts his head. The gesture is oddly familiar. “I suppose, yes,” he says. “You don’t know me at all, Sam?”

It’s frustrating, how they all know Sam. A little scary, when Sam thinks about it, because they probably know things about him that he’d rather they didn’t. Like maybe what he looks like when he’s drunk, or some embarrassing story about an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend, or some humiliating interest he has that he keeps secret from everyone else.

“I’m sorry, no.”

Cas shakes his head. Turns to Dean, frowning. “It would appear,” he says slowly, “that Sam has gone through with his plan.”

“Yeah, I figured that,” Dean almost snaps, as Sam’s eyebrows creep up his forehead in an attempt to hide from the anger he can sense crackling in the air. 

“Is Lucifer—”

“Lucifer apparently is still intact,” Dean snarls. “Probably downstairs in that fucking studio he’s got.”

Cas makes a neutral sound at the back of his throat. “Do you remember anything about last night, Sam?”

“No.” Though he kind of wishes he did, because of those bite marks on Lucifer’s skin, and the tired anger in his eyes, and the way his mouth was all red and wet as he spoke. 

“Okay.” Cas reaches up and pushes his hand through his hair—clumsily, almost; the word _simulation_ comes to Sam’s mind unbidden, same as earlier today when Lucifer shrugged, and Sam is suddenly under the impression that Cas doesn’t run his fingers through his hair often. Or that he’s not fully in practice with it yet. Which is odd, because it’s such a human thing to do, and Sam’s on the verge of asking about it when Cas stands up.

“I want to see Lucifer,” he says.

“He’s downstairs,” Sam says. “He said he works in the basement?”

Cas nods, then pauses, and Sam watches his shoulders flex under the thin material of his shirt.

A second later his frown is deepening, and he’s walking towards the door with heavy, purposeful movements. 

Dean makes a soft, concerned sound and follows him, putting a hand on his shoulder. They’re at the threshold of the door and Dean’s head is bent almost against the crook of Cas’ neck, and Sam’s trying so hard not to listen to their conversation that he hears every word.

“You okay?”

“Yes. I just—forgot.”

“It’s gotta be hard, Cas. It’s okay.”

“It’s been two months, Dean.”

Dean tilts his head further, so that his lips are brushing against Cas’ skin, and Sam does leave then, heading back into the kitchen. The coffee’s gone cold in its pot, and he plugs it back in to warm it up. Thinks about this morning, how it was almost like he woke up in the kitchen with pancakes on the stove and coffee bubbling at his left hand. 

Thinks about what Cas said, how he thought Sam had decided to “go through with his plan”. 

_What plan,_ Sam thinks, heart racing. _What fucking plan?_

By the time his coffee’s heated back up and he’s poured himself a mug, Cas has left, presumably to find Lucifer, and Dean’s standing alone, one hand on the door.

“You okay, man?” Sam asks, because it feels like the right thing to say. 

Dean laughs a little, humorless and almost apologetic. “I will be once this shit is fixed up,” he says.

Then he reaches over and lightly nudges Sam’s shoulder with his fingertips. “Can you pour me some too, Sammy? You always did make it the best.”

*

Twenty minutes later, the door opens and Cas and Lucifer come in, movements almost identical as they brush through the doorway and into the front room. Lucifer’s hoodie is paint-spattered, rolled up at the sleeves, and he smells faintly of cigarette smoke and something else, a food that Sam doesn’t recognize. He’s carrying two cans of Dr. Pepper, and he hands one to Sam before opening the other and sitting on the sofa, legs folded in front of him.

“We need to figure out what to do,” Cas says, after a long silence.

Dean makes a low sound. “Is there any way of contacting him?”

“None within my power,” Cas murmurs, sounding apologetic.

Sam frowns. “Who?”

“Well, clearly Sam contacted him,” Dean says. “So there has to be a way.”

They all look at Sam for a second—except for Lucifer, who is sitting on the sofa and staring straight ahead—and Sam feels a flush crawling up the back of his neck. 

“I don’t,” he says, confused, and takes a sip of Dr. Pepper. “I don’t understand.”

“Do you think he prayed to him?” Dean asks, drumming his fingers on his thigh.

“It’s possible,” Cas starts slowly.

“It’s not,” Lucifer interrupts, voice tired with a sort of dull anger that Sam doesn’t like to hear. It makes him want to walk over and wrap his arms around Lucifer’s shoulders, nuzzle his neck and tell him things are going to be okay. Even if they really aren’t. “Since he cast all the other angels out of Heaven, the gates have been closed, and no prayers are going through. Sam would’ve had to have summoned him here.”

Sam’s more than a little startled at the thought that he could summon a person. “Um,” he says, but Dean’s already talking, gesturing with one hand.

“You must know the summoning spell. You’re Lucifer, for Christ’s sake, you—”

“—I was cast out millions of years ago, Dean, as you are well aware,” Lucifer interrupts, and now Sam’s _really_ starting to freak out. Following this conversation is a little like trying to follow a tennis match—fast and confused and too complicated. “Why don’t you ask Castiel, he wasn’t ripped from his family before his time—”

Something pained and shadowy crosses Cas’ face, and Lucifer settles against the sofa cushions with a dark sort of satisfaction in his eyes. Dean looks like he’s about to get up and _murder_ Lucifer, and Sam can’t stand it anymore.

“What are you all _talking_ about?” he interrupts, loud and upset. Slamming the Dr. Pepper can on the table for emphasis, and Dean spins around, looking guilty. “Who the fuck did I summon here? I don’t even know how to summon people for God’s sake, that’s like—that’s _witchcraft,_ I’m not a witch. I don’t do that sort of thing.” And then he pauses, brow furrowing, because actually he has no idea if he does that sort of thing. 

Dean’s staring down at his empty coffee mug, mouth set and tight at the corners.

“Do I?” Sam asks, a little wild, a little frantic, and Dean very slowly shakes his head no, but he won’t look at Sam. 

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Cas says quietly.

“What is it then,” Sam asks. “And what did you mean—” pointing at Lucifer, who turns back around slowly, expression neutral—“you were ‘cast out’? You said ‘millions of years ago’, what does that mean.”

Lucifer draws in a breath, exhales softly, and drains the last of his Dr. Pepper before standing up and setting the can on the coffee table. The way he stands, he looks old, far older than his body and his hair would allow Sam to believe, and his eyes are full of exhaustion, and that cold anger from earlier, and so much longing that Sam can almost feel it in his chest.

“You two,” he says, looking at Dean and Cas, “go see if you can find out any information on Metatron’s location, and how he might be called back to the apartment.” 

The name ‘Metatron’ sounds familiar to Sam, in the same vague way that everything else has this morning, and he sinks back down into his chair, pressing his fingers to his temple. 

Dean stands up, Cas right behind him. He walks over to Sam’s side of the table and presses one hand down on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, Sammy,” he says. Voice rough and unhappy, barely threaded with forced optimism. “We’re gonna fix you, you’re gonna be okay.”

Then he and Cas walk out of the apartment, leaving Sam alone with Lucifer. Lucifer with his heavy, oppressive sadness and his barely controlled anger, who seems so familiar to Sam that it almost hurts. 

“Did I do this to myself?” Sam asks him. Because he might not remember anything, but he can still put together clues pretty easily.

Lucifer’s face goes tense. Every line standing out in stark relief, and Sam imagines that in another life he might have known what all of them meant. “Yes,” Lucifer says, quiet and careful. 

“Oh,” Sam breathes. 

Lucifer won’t look at him. “Come down to the studio with me,” he says. “We can talk there.”

Sam is in no position to refuse, so he just nods, and follows Lucifer out.

*

Lucifer’s studio is quiet and spacious, stacked almost to the ceiling with canvases and cans of paint, drawing pads and colored pencils. There’s a row of Sharpies in one corner, hanging off what looks like an old mechanic’s belt, and Sam has a—

_—“Dean, hand me that wrench, would you?” (Yeah sure, Sam, if you think you can fix the engine without killing my car)—_

—memory of working with Dean and a belt like that, and he blinks, startled, rubbing one hand down his face. 

“You’re an artist?” Sam asks, trying to shake the memory off because it’s disorienting him. 

Lucifer makes a quiet sound of acquiescence, moving over to a table covered in knives and wood carvings. He unzips his hoodie, tugging it off and tossing it to the side, and Sam watches the play of skin on muscle, the tattoo rippling against his back, dull red and burnt sienna and slices of ochre. 

“What sorts of things,” Sam starts to ask, and stops when Lucifer turns to look at him. Just to look, but the expression in his eyes is enough to silence Sam—pain and sorrow, cutting bone-deep.

“I do not wish to make small talk,” Lucifer says. His hand is clenched tight around one of the knives on the table. “I brought you here to explain what has happened to your memory, and then I—I need you to leave.”

_—“Do you wish me to stay, Sam?” (What the hell do you think?)—_

“Oh,” Sam murmurs again, as Lucifer shifts his gaze back to the table. 

“You made a deal with someone,” Lucifer starts, grabbing a block of wood off the table and scraping away at its edges with the knife. “An angel, Metatron. He promised you something, and you believed him.”

Sam isn’t actually sure he could be that stupid. He says as much to Lucifer, whose shoulders go tense for a second.

“Metatron is—he’s very good with words,” Lucifer explains. 

“So what you’re saying is that angels are real,” Sam says, “and I did something with one of them, and now I can’t remember anything?”

Lucifer’s hands still against the block of wood. “In a very roundabout way, yes,” he murmurs at length. “That is what happened.”

“What was the deal?” Sam asks, because he can’t not know. He sold his memory away, fine, maybe there’s nothing worth remembering. But he can’t quite believe that—he’s got a brother upstairs, after all. A brother and a man who could very well be his brother-in-law and—Lucifer. Sam’s got Lucifer, his partner, whatever they are to each other—Sam gets the impression that he and Lucifer mean a lot more to each other than he can fully comprehend right now. 

He needs to know. 

Lucifer reaches up and pushes his hand through his hair— _simulation,_ Sam thinks again—and breathes out slow and steady through his mouth a few times before looking over his shoulder at Sam. 

“Nothing good,” he says, cautious, like he’s afraid of tripping on his own words.

“Death?” Sam asks hesitantly. “Does whatever I did involve me dying at some point?”

The careful structure of Lucifer’s face, the _(simulation)_ of neutrality, of no emotions, falls. It’s just for a second, and then he’s back to staring with blank eyes at Sam, but it’s an obvious shift, and Sam feels something tighten in his chest.

“We’re all going to die eventually,” Lucifer says, that slow burn of anger back in his voice, and then he turns away. Back to the wood and the knife and the shavings around his bare ankles.

“Lucifer,” Sam starts.

“I said I would explain to you what you needed to know,” Lucifer says. “And I have. And now you need to leave.” His voice is caught somewhere halfway down his throat, and Sam can’t—won’t—press. He doesn’t even know Lucifer. 

_—“Even now, they’re just gonna send you back?” (Did you expect anything more from an absent Father, Sam?)—_

“Lucifer,” Sam says again, and is surprised at the shakiness in his own voice. “Were you—were you an angel, too? I mean—were you really—is that why you said—”

“Sam,” Lucifer interrupts, quiet but firm, in a tone that manages to fill the entire room. Sam has a fleeting impression of fiery swords and violent thunderstorms, of skies wracked with lightning, and he shivers. “You need to leave.”

The words don’t come any easier from his mouth this second time, but Sam leaves anyway, heading up the stairs and then to the elevator that will take him back to his own apartment.

It occurs to him, with a vicious solidifying of dread in his chest, that Lucifer didn’t actually answer his question about whether he’d signed on for an early death or not.

*

“So we think we might have found something,” Dean says later, into his phone. Sam can hear the faint sounds of traffic rushing by in the background, wonders if Dean’s on his phone and driving at the same time.

“Okay.” Sam spears a piece of pasta with his cooking fork, takes a bite. It’s not exactly done, and he drops it back into the boiling water. “You mean about Metatron?”

“Yeah—” Dean starts, and then pauses. “How much did Lucifer tell you about him?”

“Just that I’d made a deal with him, and now my memory’s shot. That he promised me something and I believed whatever it is he’d said.” Sam presses back against the stove, just avoiding the burning heat of the pot with his shirt, and shuts his eyes. “Dean, you have to tell me what I made a deal for. Lucifer wouldn’t, he—he said it was bad. Whatever it was, he said it was ‘nothing good’.”

“I have to agree with the son of a bitch on that,” Dean says, after a few seconds. Laughs harsh and broken into the phone, and Sam—

_—“You made a deal with a crossroads demon, Dean? What the hell is wrong with you?” (Couldn’t just let you die, could I, Sammy?)—_

—sees a fleeting image of Dean’s face when he laughs like that. Feels his heart jerk and drop twenty feet in his chest.

“Just—can you tell me what I wanted? What Metatron said to me?” Sam sucks in a breath. “I wanna know why I was stupid enough to believe something an angel said to me. I don’t know any angels, Dean. And even if I did, I don’t think I’d take them at their word. Just like that.”

Dean’s silence is enough to remind Sam that _fuck_ if he knows whether or not he’s actually acquainted with any celestial beings.

“Sam,” Dean says, when the silence has gotten thick and tangible through the phone lines, “look—Cas and I have found a way we can maybe track him down. Get that son of a bitch back to your apartment and trap him there. We want to do that before we explain anything else to you, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, right, like anything else is gonna shock me.” Sam doesn’t know where the bitterness in his voice is coming from, but it feels natural, it feels right, and he throws in a sarcastic little laugh for good measure. “Like I can hear anything at this point that I won’t believe. You came to my apartment and told me you’re my _brother,_ for God’s sake—I don’t even _know_ you, Dean, but we’re related by _blood,_ that’s kind of a huge thing. And this Lucifer guy, I mean—I’m _living_ with him? We’re _together?_ And I don’t know him any more than I know you, but I’m willing to believe all of it if it means I can maybe remember whatever it is I was supposed to forget about my life.” He stops, takes a breath. His face feels wet, and when he lifts a hand, he’s surprised to feel tears on his cheeks. 

“Sam,” Dean says, when Sam doesn’t speak again. “I just. I think it’d be best for now, okay?”

“Dean—”

“I’ll call you when Cas and I have more information.” 

Then he hangs up. 

Sam is briefly tempted to throw his phone against the wall before he remembers that it’s pretty much his only way of contacting anyone in his life right now. He shoves it into his back pocket, and rakes his hands over his face, sighing heavily.

When he spears another bit of pasta and brings it to his mouth, it tastes perfect.

*

Lucifer comes back to their apartment about an hour after Sam’s finished with his lunch, more paint splattered onto his jeans and his jacket, hair a dusty mess on his head. He glances once at Sam before heading for the hallway, and only pauses when Sam stands, saying his name in a quietly desperate voice.

“If you’re going to ask about your deal,” Lucifer says. “The answer’s still ‘no’. I’m not telling you.” His voice is full of pain, mouth tight, and Sam swallows.

_—“I will never lie to you. I will never trick you.”—_

“I just want to say thanks,” Sam admits, rubbing at the back of his neck. “You could have left, when you realized I don’t know who you are. But you didn’t.”

Lucifer shakes his head. “I wouldn’t,” he says. 

Sam starts to smile, but Lucifer’s expression doesn’t change. “What you did, Sam, that was— _completely_ reckless, and I can’t say I will forgive you easily. But right now, I’m here. I’m protecting you.”

“Because you’re an angel?” Sam guesses. He doesn’t mean to press the issue, but there’s still that burning desire to _know,_ and what can it hurt, this one little piece of information about the world around him.

Lucifer’s eyes go still and flat, dangerous. Sam has half a second to reconsider, to open his mouth and apologize, and then Lucifer’s turning, walking up the stairs. 

The line of his shoulders warns Sam not to follow, and so Sam doesn’t.

But god, he wants to.

*

There are no picture albums in the apartment. No journals. Nothing to help Sam remember who he is except the fourteen contacts in his phone—and only three of the names listed there are names he recognizes. The rest, Charlie and Garth and Kevin and Jodi—with a question mark—are just confusing him, so he shuts his phone and tosses it absently onto the sofa. He sees a laptop resting on the coffee table, underneath a few stacks of paper, and only hesitates for a second, glancing at the staircase, before grabbing it and hauling it into his lap.

It’s password-locked. 

Sam lets out a low, frustrated groan. Looks at the staircase again, and then at the ceiling. “Metatron,” he growls, “whoever the fuck you are, I hope your promise was fucking worth this.”

“Oh, I’d like to think it was,” a voice says, and then all the air in the middle of the room expands itself to make way for—

“ _You’re_ Metatron?” Sam asks, raising his eyebrows. Because this isn’t what he was expecting at all. Not this short, round-faced man with three days’ worth of stubble growing on his jaw and a halfway-tucked-in button-down and an ugly sweater that reeks of cat piss and something else, something older and fouler that makes Sam wince. The expression on his face reminds Sam of things that were buried ages ago but managed to crawl out of their graves. 

“Guilty as charged.” Metatron smirks, sticking his hands in his pockets. Tilting his head to the side, and Sam is, inexplicably, reminded of Cas. “Don’t tell me you aren’t enjoying it, Sam. This freedom from all your burdens.”

Sam stands up. He looms over Metatron, but there is no fear in his eyes. Just a slight hint of madness, and maybe something darker, more evil, in the back. Though that couldn’t be, because Metatron’s an angel, and angels are good. That’s one thing Sam knows for sure.

“Listen,” he says slowly, “whatever I said to you, whatever deal I made with you, I want to take it back. I don’t want this anymore.”

“No can do, Sammy,” Metatron says.

_—“‘Sammy’ is a chubby twelve-year-old. It’s Sam, okay?”—_

“Why the hell not?”

Before Metatron can answer, though, a door opens upstairs and Lucifer comes down, wearing sweatpants and a loose-fitting plaid shirt that Sam thinks he recognizes—

_—“It’s just until we can get you some clothes of your own, Luce, I don’t mind. Really.”—_

—but he’s not too sure. 

“You,” Lucifer snarls, glaring at Metatron. There’s nothing friendly about his voice, every muscle in his body tense, something very close to hatred in his eyes. 

“Ah,” Metatron says, turning away from Sam. “Heaven’s former favorite. Tell me, Lucifer, how does it feel to be trapped forever in a form that wasn’t even supposed to be yours?”

Sam’s eyebrows come together in confusion. “What.” And he thinks, _so he **is** an angel._

Lucifer takes a step forward. Authority radiates off him, in the lines of his shoulders and his arms, in the set of his jaw. He tilts his head to the side, studies Metatron like he’s a mildly interesting specimen beneath a magnifying glass.

“I believe Sam asked for his memories back,” Lucifer says coldly. 

“I believe Sam signed a contract, knew what he was asking for.” Metatron sneers. “And as of right now, I’m the only one in this room who holds any sort of power—”

There’s a loud knock at the door just then, and Sam jumps up to answer. It’s Dean and Cas, carrying a Wal-Mart bag full of stuff Sam doesn’t recognize. Dean pushes past Sam when he sees Metatron; grabs his wrist and forces him to the ground in an impressively fluid motion.

Sam thinks he might know how to do that, too.

“Fucking stop,” Dean says, digging his knee into the small of Metatron’s back. “When is it enough for you, you bastard? Taking on all of Heaven wasn’t good enough for you, was it. You had to go and snag my brother’s memories.”

“He gave them willingly—”

“Yeah, well, he’s changed his fucking mind, so give them back—”

Metatron shakes his head. There are tears in his eyes, and it takes Sam a second to realize they’re from laughter, not pain. “You’re all idiots,” Metatron says. “Sam’s memory is _mine,_ now and forever. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t give it back to him. They are bound to me; they strengthen me with their feelings of camaraderie and love—”

Dean’s slamming Metatron’s head against the floor, and Sam feels his stomach drop even as something tugs at the back of his mind, recognizing this from somewhere else, another time, a while ago—Dean torturing someone or something else, bashing their face into a solid brick wall until they gave an answer. 

Metatron’s laughter is wild and unrestrained even over the blood trickling from his nose into his mouth. “Your brother made his decision, now he’ll live with it forever,” he says, and then there’s a loud sound, a rush of air and space, and Dean’s kneeling on the floor alone, hands still poised where Metatron’s head was seconds ago.

Sam is shaking. Badly. “Will someone please explain what the fuck is going on?”

*

Metatron apparently can be summoned one of two ways—either by a summons, one of the Latin incantations in the bag, or if he wants to go. Sam guesses he probably wanted to come to the apartment today to check on Sam, to see if his memory-removal trick had worked. Sam has never felt so angry—or at least, he doesn’t think he has. He doesn’t see how he could have; this anger boils inside of him, hot and viscous, it films his vision over with red and he’s pretty sure too much of it would kill him.

Dean and Cas leave the apartment after explaining about the summoning—Dean’s too angry and antsy to stay in one place, and Cas doesn’t like to be without Dean—and now it’s just Lucifer and Sam again, and the bag of things from Wal-Mart. Ritualistic angel-summoning things, Dean explained before he left. Powders and chants and a drawing of a sigil that will trap Metatron wherever they want him to be. Things that Sam apparently has used before in his life, things he thinks he might remember if he could stare at them long enough, though with all these memories running around half-formed and tentative in his head, he’s not sure just how much of his past he’s trying to make up.

He glances at Lucifer, sitting across the table from him with a mug of coffee in his hands and a quietly blank expression on his face. Knows his past—or at least some of it—is caught in Lucifer’s head, and he takes a deep breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re an angel?”

Lucifer looks up. “I fell so many years ago, Sam. I can no longer classify myself as such.”

“You’re the Devil, though—” Lucifer winces at that, a barely visible flexing of his shoulders, and Sam feels bad without even knowing why. 

“Even if I hadn’t fallen,” he says slowly. “Even if my Father had allowed me to stay, I would have been cast out two months ago with everyone else.”

“Cast out?” Sam asks, and remembers—

_—“The angels. They’re falling.”—_

—something. Something horrible and devastating and beautiful, a light show, a meteor shower, a razing of Heaven’s armies. 

“Metatron expelled every angel from Heaven,” Lucifer explains, staring down at his hands. “This included Michael and myself, though we were in the Cage at the time—when the angels fell, we rose, and I had nowhere to go but to you.”

 _Partners,_ Sam thinks, and feels a faint tug at the center of his chest. Like something inside him is trying to remember a massive part of his life which he cannot.

“You were once my true vessel, Sam,” Lucifer says. “Every angel has a vessel on Earth, and you—you were made for me, a perfectly crafted human, the last good thing my Father ever created before he disappeared. So I came to you, and—I have become more adept at being human, as the months have gone by. But I will never enjoy it.” 

_—“It’s not so bad, getting stuck here. It’s like living in a fantasy world forever. And you’ll be with me. Always, Lucifer.” (You are the only human I will ever tolerate, Sam.)—_

“If I was helping you,” Sam says, “why’d I ask to have my memory wiped? If I wanted to be with you, why would I ask to forget everything?”

Pain shadows Lucifer’s features. “You began to blame yourself for everything—for the fall of the angels, for how long I was trapped in the Cage. You had—made a mistake earlier, and you thought perhaps there was only one way to remedy it. So you called to Metatron. When he answered, you asked for a favor—if he wiped your memory, could he guarantee that we—” Lucifer gestures at himself, and Sam figures he means Dean and Cas as well—“would eventually begin to forget you?”

Sam’s starting to really dislike himself from the past. 

“Did Metatron—is that the promise he made me?”

“He told you he’d get you out of your memories forever and that you’d be much happier, and that we would as well,” Lucifer says, nodding. “You were so—relieved. You wanted me to wipe my memories too—you said it’d be the best thing for both of us, then I wouldn’t know I was an angel once, or who you are, and that we could both start over.”

“But you wouldn’t,” Sam guesses.

Lucifer looks up at him, then, and the intensity of his gaze should be startling, but it isn’t. It feels familiar and warm, and Sam doesn’t ever want to stop looking at Lucifer, at the way he watches Sam. Like Sam’s something worth protecting, something precious and good that Lucifer loves.

“I wouldn’t,” Lucifer agrees, voice quiet and careful, and Sam remembers him saying that earlier, when they were discussing the fact that Lucifer hadn’t abandoned Sam even though his memory is gone.

“So you—”

“I fought with you,” Lucifer says softly. “I begged you not to. You wanted to, so badly, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it, so—” he gestures between them, and Sam remembers the way he’d looked this morning. All fucked-out and exhausted, and he feels a low flush rising up on his cheeks.

Apparently he’s the type of guy who has sex right before a monumental decision.

“We showered together afterwards,” Lucifer continues after a few seconds. “I thought everything was okay between us, Sam. You lay down in bed, you looked tired. I fell asleep before I could make sure you weren’t going to go through with it, and—”He sighs softly. “When I came into the kitchen in the morning, I could tell something was off, but it wasn’t until you asked who I was that I realized you’d done it anyway.” 

“I’m sorry,” Sam says quietly.

Lucifer looks away from him, a muscle jumping high in his jaw. Sam’s shirt slips on Lucifer’s collarbone, and he catches a glimpse of that wing tattoo in the seconds before Lucifer adjusts it again.

“Your tattoo,” Sam says, trying to steer the conversation away from his past, his stupidity. “Is it a representation of your wings from before?”

Lucifer draws in a tight breath. “If you hadn’t given your memories away, you’d still know,” he says. Low curl of fire in his voice, and though Sam feels a stab of annoyance in his chest at that answer he doesn’t press. 

Then Lucifer gets up and walks out, and Sam’s not even surprised when he doesn’t say where he’s going before slamming the door shut behind him.

*

A few hours later, he gets a call on his phone. **Dean** , the I.D. says, but Sam still hesitates before answering. Knowing the truth about himself, or at least some of it, isn’t exactly giving him the great, relieved feeling he’d hoped it would. He can’t stop thinking about what Lucifer said, that he’d made a mistake and was trying to make up for it by wiping his memory clean. Can’t stop thinking about all these stupid decisions he’s made in the past twenty-four hours that have led to this moment, to Sam standing in his own kitchen with his phone in his hand and no idea of how to work the shower upstairs.

“Dean,” he says eventually, answering the phone and trying to smooth his voice out. “Any leads?”

He doesn’t know why he says that. It sounds like a line off a really bad cop show, but it slides fluid and easy off his tongue, and he can hear a faint smile in Dean’s voice when he responds:

“That’s why I called, Sammy.”

“Great,” Sam starts, but before he can say any more another voice comes on the phone, softer and more cultured than Dean’s, but no less commanding. A low hum of vocal chords that pulls hard at Sam’s heartstrings even though his memories of this voice are less than twelve hours old. 

“Bring the bag of Wal-Mart supplies,” Lucifer says. “Meet us at the Starbucks two blocks over.”

“Lucifer, he doesn’t even know where that is—” Dean says, muffled and off the phone.

But Sam does, surprisingly. He remembers it with a suddenness that would have knocked him off his feet if he’d been standing up. The Starbucks two blocks over is where he got Lucifer’s first dinner—a slice of pumpkin cake, to start off small and easy, and a tall white-chocolate mocha. They’d sat in the booth at the far right corner, and Lucifer had gotten a smidge of coffee on his lip, and Sam hadn’t even hesitated before leaning in and kissing it off. 

He remembers it was another week before they kissed again—properly, Sam’s sure, though he can’t really remember that one so well—but the expression in Lucifer’s eyes that first time, that had been more than substantial. The way his entire face had gone soft, the curious tilt of his head, how his mouth had curved at the corner. The awe and wonder in his eyes, and Sam remembers thinking how proud he was to have made Lucifer— _Lucifer!_ —look like that. 

_—“You just had a little—thing—there.” (I know, Sam.) “So it’s okay?” (It’s okay.)—_

“I know where the Starbucks is,” Sam says now, into the mouthpiece, and Lucifer murmurs, “Good,” and then hangs up.

Sam doesn’t quite know why his heart is pounding so hard as he grabs the Wal-Mart bag and runs out of his apartment, almost tripping over his feet trying to get back when he remembers he has to lock it first.

*

Dean, Cas, and Lucifer are standing outside the Starbucks when Sam arrives. He holds up the bag, and Dean takes it, glancing inside the store for a second before kneeling in front of the door and spreading out materials—bags full of something that looks like dirt, tiny jars of blood—

_—“Christ, Dean, you can’t just wave shit around like that in public, people will think you’re a serial killer.” (We’re pretty close, Sam.)—_

—and, strangely, a lighter.

“You have it, Cas?” Dean asks, and Cas hands him a jar of something that resembles vinegar. Though Sam has a feeling it’s not.

“Are you sure about this, Lucifer,” Dean asks, leveling his gaze onto Lucifer’s. 

“I’m positive.” Lucifer narrows his eyes, just slightly, a threat. “Have I ever lied when it concerns Sam?”

Dean doesn’t answer, just empties the bags of dirt onto the pavement. Spreads their contents around, then dips his fingers in the blood and begins painting that strange sigil in the dirt. Once he’s done that, he pours the vinegar-like substance in a circle next to the sigils, and Cas waits until Dean’s standing away from the circle before he clicks on the lighter and lets it fall.

“Holy oil,” Sam breathes, watching the flames, and wonders how the hell he knows something like that, but he can’t remember what he had for breakfast yesterday.

Dean shoots Sam a proud look, one that swells up in Sam’s chest and makes him smile in return, and then he starts chanting. It’s Latin, and another language Sam doesn’t know, but he still recognizes a few phrases here and there, snatches of things like _knife_ and _blood_ and _death._

There are two huge columns of light in the air now, and Sam can hear the atmosphere expanding itself, trying to make room for something too huge to be on planet Earth. Lucifer steps back, and Sam instinctively follows him. Watches as, for an instant, Lucifer’s eyes go soft with longing and want as he gazes up at the sky.

The light becomes too bright, and Sam has to shut his eyes in order to prevent being blinded.

When he opens them again, Metatron is standing in the fiery circle, and Dean is holding a sword. It’s covered in dirt and blood, accompanying a large patch of sword-shaped clean cement next to the ring of holy fire, and all Sam can do is stare. Stare at his brother, who was smart enough to do the incantation, and at Lucifer, who knew it could be done in the first place.

“I thought you said you were stuck in Hell too long to know about anything like this,” Sam murmurs in Lucifer’s ear.

“I remembered one thing.” Lucifer glances once at Sam, eyebrows raised, lips drawn into a half-smile, and suddenly all Sam wants is to kiss him. To grab his shirt lapels and pull him in and make him forget that today ever happened. Because if this all goes well, today won’t be the only memory Sam has of Lucifer. Not anymore.

“You give Sam back his memories,” Dean is saying to Metatron, sword at his throat. “Or this goes straight in your gut.”

There’s a small gathering of people inside the Starbucks now, people who look like they want to leave but aren’t quite sure how to side-step a fat man in a circle of fire. Dean makes a gesture with his free hand at Cas, eyes never leaving Metatron’s face, and Cas walks over to the door. Pushes it open and goes inside, and Sam assumes he’s leading the customers to a back entrance because they all walk away a few seconds later.

“I already told you, Dean,” Metatron says, all sneers and flashing eyes. “I can’t. Even if I wanted to, they’re—”

“That is _bullshit!”_ Dean yells, and presses the knife in harder. A tiny trickle of blood rolls over Metatron’s skin, followed almost immediately by a sliver of bluish-white light, and Metatron’s smile collapses. Eyes go wide and panicked, and Sam doesn’t have to ask Lucifer what’s going on, because he _knows._ Even without his memories fully intact, he still knows what that light is, and now he’s stepping forward too, joining Dean at their foe’s demise. Just like it should be.

“I remember things, Metatron,” Sam snarls. “Even with your contract still in place, I’m remembering things all the time. And I’ve got Lucifer, and Dean, and Cas, and anyone else I might know to help me remember who I am. So you might as well give me back what I’ve lost, because there’s no point in keeping it from me.”

Metatron’s glaring at Sam. “I wouldn’t give you those memories back,” he starts, but his voice is cut off abruptly as Dean shoves the knife all the way in. The blade comes out on the other side of Metatron’s neck, and he lets out a single, blood-muffled cry of pain and surprise before the light of his Grace expands outward, blasting from his vessel into oblivion.

When Sam is able to open his eyes again, he’s lying in the parking lot. Metatron’s vessel is in the middle of a smoldering fire-circle, wings flared outward from his body, burned into the cement. Dean is just inside the Starbucks doors, waiting for Cas, just like he always has been. Lucifer’s standing off to the side, head tilted, an expression of cold amusement in his eyes as he stares down at Metatron’s remains.

And Sam remembers. He remembers everything.

*

They have dinner to celebrate Sam’s memory coming back: steak and potatoes and, at Sam’s request, salad. Dean and Cas stay to help clean the plates, and then they leave—Dean giving Sam a hug that almost knocks the breath out of his lungs—and Sam and Lucifer are alone. 

“Do you regret it?” Lucifer asks, draping his feet across Sam’s lap as they sit together on the sofa. “Having your memories back, that is. Now that you remember all you’ve done, would you wish to take it away?”

Sam reaches out and grabs Lucifer’s hand, tracing his thumb over the palm. Lucifer’s hands are gorgeous things, long-fingered and a little calloused and quick, always splayed over Sam’s hips when they’re in bed, or carding through his hair, or moving fast and rough over him when he’s about to come.

“I don’t,” Sam says, and looks Lucifer directly in the eye. “I mean, yeah, I wish—I wish I had made a few decisions differently, but I don’t regret remembering you.” He hesitates, eyes flicking from Lucifer’s sea-gray ones to his mouth, still red and wet from the spices on the steak, then adds, “God, I can’t believe I ever thought it would be worth it to give this up.” 

Lucifer’s expression doesn’t change, but his eyes hold a curious warmth, something almost amused and certainly more than a little content as he stares at Sam. That intensity is back in his gaze, the familiar look on his face like he’d burn an entire city to the ground if he thought it would make Sam happy, and Sam doesn’t think. Doesn’t let himself think at all as he leans in and kisses Lucifer, just there, tasting steak and beer and Italian dressing. 

He fists his hands in Lucifer’s shirt— _his_ shirt, really, though he supposes Lucifer can keep it, considering the way it looks on him—and draws him in closer, the way he wanted to back in the Starbucks parking lot. Keeps one hand on Lucifer’s chest, and pulls the other one through his hair, dragging it the wrong way and making Lucifer shiver.

There’s an empty Chinese takeout box digging into Sam’s ass. His knee is on Lucifer’s thigh, and his arm is bent at an odd angle, and he’s pretty sure it’s not going to be too long before one of them cracks and asks if they can move this to a slightly more convenient location. He’s uncomfortable and tired and starting to get a little sore, and he could not be happier.

It’s well worth it, Sam thinks, to remember everything, when he gets to have this.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [One Small Idea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/922943) by [TrickedThem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrickedThem/pseuds/TrickedThem)




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